Vatican City, Aug 22, 2014 / 01:19 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis has given $1 million as a personal contribution to help Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq who have been forced from their homes, according to his personal envoy to the country.

Cardinal Fernando Filoni, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, visited Erbil as Pope Francis' envoy from Aug. 12-20.

Erbil, where more than 70,000 Christians have fled from the Islamic State, is the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan and is within 50 miles of territory held by the Islamic State.

Cardinal Filoni met in private with Pope Francis the day after he returned to Rome, and spoke to CNA Aug. 22.

Cardinal Filoni said he had carried with him one tenth of the Pope's contribution, and that “75 percent of the money was delivered to Catholics, and the remaining 25 percent to the Yazidi community.”

The Islamic State is a recently established caliphate that has persecuted all non-Sunnis in its territory, which extends across swaths of Iraq and Syria.

“Pope Francis gave me a humanitarian mission, not a diplomatic mission, and this is what I always emphasized to Iraqi authorities,” Cardinal Filoni said.

The Pope's decision to send a personal envoy to Iraq, the cardinal said, “meant to me that if he had been able to go, he would have.”

Cardinal Filoni recounted that Pope Francis entrusted him with letters for Kurdish president Masoud Barzani and Iraqi president Fuad Masum presenting him “as his personal envoy and expressing his concern for what Christians and minorities in general are suffering, because they have been uprooted from their lands and persecuted.”

The Islamic State has forced more than 1.2 million Christians, Yazidis, and Shia Muslims from their homes in Iraq, under threat of death or heavy fines if they do not convert.

In the face of such violence, Cardinal Filoni said intervention to stop the aggressor is a legitimate option.

“The Church does not back any war. The right to defend one's self is legitimate. But our Christians in Iraq have no arms. Therefore, it is necessary that someone – in this case the legitimate authorities of the country – should defend minorities, especially those most in danger.”

He suggested that “in an international framework, the United Nations should decide” whether to intervene or not, but added that “the Church will not tell the United Nations what they have or they do not have to do.”

Cardinal Filoni recounted that he heard displaced Christians say, “if the international authorities provide a protected zone for us around our villages, our territory, we should go back there.”

The Pope's envoy also emphasized that in his meetings with Iraqi authorities, he had always been accompanied by representatives of the local Churches.

“At every meeting, I was accompanied by Chaldean Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako, the Syriac Catholic Archbishop of Mosul Youhanna Moshe, and the apostolic nuncio to Iraq, Giorgio Lingua, as well as others.”

Cardinal Filoni said their meetings addressed concrete issues such as that of the children unable to take their final exams so as to pass to the next year of their schooling.

“The Church deals with the concrete needs of people, but it has to continue caring for the moral and spiritual assistance of our Christians, as well.”

“As long as our Christians remain in the region, we cannot abandon them. As long as even one only Christian lives in Iraq, we will be there.”

“This is Pope Francis' line,” he said. “That we, as shepherds, should carry our sheep on our shoulders and lead them, but we also must walk with them.”

“We must walk in front of them to lead them, walk among them to spur them, walk behind them to encourage them.”

I have no idea where the funds for this donation came from, but in the past I have donated to one of the Pope's personal charities, Peter's Pence:

Peters Pence is the name given to the financial support offered by the faithful to the Holy Father as a sign of their sharing in the concern of the Successor of Peter for the many different needs of the Universal Church and for the relief of those most in need.

Lol!! Sorry ... the image of a wealthy Pope Francis was rather amusing, especially given the lamentation of some catholics over the fact that he has shunned any and all trappings of the traditional papacy.

Cardinal Bergoglio riding the bus in Argentina

Pope Francis in Korea, riding in the "popemobile", a KIA.

Dear friend, the pope has no personal wealth. Moreover, this pope has opted to keep expenses low by riding with the other clergy.

The monies sent to Iraq come from charitable collections taken worldwide.

How has your church responded to this crisis? Have they taken up a collection for the Iraqi christians?

5
posted on 08/22/2014 3:49:52 PM PDT
by NYer
("You are a puff of smoke that appears briefly and then disappears." James 4:14)

Vatican City, Aug 22, 2014 / 01:19 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis has given $1 million as a personal contribution to help Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq

We know what personal means in English and the article was presented in English...Would be hard to believe that the only word in the article that could have been translated wrong is the word personal...

If your pope contributed a million of his personal stash, I commend him for that...It's interesting he may be a multimillionaire...

As another poster said, every Catholic Parish in the US has a Sunday offering for Peter’s Pence, which is a donation of money given to the Pope to use for issues he thinks the money should go to, in this case, it seems the Peter’s Pence donations are going to help Iraqi Catholics and also the Yazidi’s.

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